Nothing ever tells you to want less, everything tells you to want more. So you go around collecting lots of stuff, lots of nice things. You turn your home into a wunderkammer jammed with things you like, a mausoleum for the things you don't like (because you hold onto those too) and then you open it up like a museum when you take part in small talk. Shelves of opinions and prejudices sit and collect dust, you might take one down and rotate it, talk about it for a while, then place it back in its spot where it's been for a long time.
We keep our opinions and prejudices, expectations and preconceptions just like we keep our toys from childhood, we keep our milk teeth, we pick up books we won't read, we stack up diaries already written, letters already read. Jewellery that doesn't suit us, clothing that's stained or too small, food that's gone off.
I've come to a situation where I need to lose the things I've gathered in order to move forward, and it's difficult because I've never needed to before. I collected lots of ideas about myself and ideas about how to meditate. I would line up rogue thoughts and tie them in bundles and throw them off cliffs, just to try and clear my head. That took up a lot of energy and they kept coming, like lemmings. Meditation became difficult and I slowly lost hope for it being what I had expected: silent, calm, expansive.
Then I spoke to a really lovely man who told me that I don't need to wrangle my thoughts like wild horses, that in fact I have to let them go. It's not like unpicking a hem, it's like taking your clothes off. It's not like exfoliating your feet, it's like being a snake and shedding your old skin.
You don't need to commit to laborious work to undo habits, just open your hands and let them fall and focus on something else.
We keep our opinions and prejudices, expectations and preconceptions just like we keep our toys from childhood, we keep our milk teeth, we pick up books we won't read, we stack up diaries already written, letters already read. Jewellery that doesn't suit us, clothing that's stained or too small, food that's gone off.
I've come to a situation where I need to lose the things I've gathered in order to move forward, and it's difficult because I've never needed to before. I collected lots of ideas about myself and ideas about how to meditate. I would line up rogue thoughts and tie them in bundles and throw them off cliffs, just to try and clear my head. That took up a lot of energy and they kept coming, like lemmings. Meditation became difficult and I slowly lost hope for it being what I had expected: silent, calm, expansive.
Then I spoke to a really lovely man who told me that I don't need to wrangle my thoughts like wild horses, that in fact I have to let them go. It's not like unpicking a hem, it's like taking your clothes off. It's not like exfoliating your feet, it's like being a snake and shedding your old skin.
You don't need to commit to laborious work to undo habits, just open your hands and let them fall and focus on something else.
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